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Diagnosis of Sympathetic Reflex Dystrophy
Diagnostic Testing for Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy
Thermographic studies measure changes in temperature between areas of the body affected by RSD and non-affected areas.
Other Tests
At present, the only sure way to determine if the sympathetic nervous system is involved is to perform a sympathetic nerve block to determine if the patient's pain is relieved. Since this procedure can lead to complications as well as false negative or false positive results, some clinicians also perform a phentolamine test. For this test, phentolamine, an antagonist for pain receptors of the sympathetic nervous system, is infused intravenously and if pain relief is achieved and is correlated to the time of infusion, it reflects involvement of the sympathetic nervous system.
